1. When it is worth it
A field person makes sense when there is identifiable demand you are not reaching: contractors working sites in your area, shops in nearby towns who buy from somebody further away, or builders whose purchase decisions are made in an office rather than at a counter. If your shop is still turning away business it could serve from the counter, fix that first — a field person cannot solve a stock problem.
2. Give them a list, not a territory
Sending somebody out to "develop the market" produces activity and no results. Give them a specific list of named prospects — contractors, shops, builders — with a phone number and an address, and a defined outcome for each visit. A list can be worked through and measured; a territory cannot. Bulk-uploading the list you already have somewhere is usually the fastest start.
3. What to actually track
Not visits made, which is easy to inflate, but outcomes recorded at the time of the visit. Interested, call back on a date, not interested, converted. Logged at the moment rather than remembered for a Monday meeting, the record is actually true. GPS on the attendance punch tells you where the day started; the outcomes tell you whether it was worth anything.
4. The number that tells you it is working
How many assigned prospects have had no contact recorded in the last seven days. That single figure separates a pipeline being worked from a list being stored, and it is visible without asking anybody. Somebody with sixty prospects and eight touched in a week is not busy, they are stuck — usually because the list has stale numbers or because nobody agreed what a follow-up looks like.
5. Let them bill from the field
A field person who has to bring an order back to the shop adds a day to every transaction. With a limited login they can raise the invoice at the customer's premises at the rates agreed for that party, record the delivery, and take a UPI payment — while never seeing your purchase rates or margins. That is the difference between a person who takes orders and a person who closes sales.
6. Paying them without arguments
Field roles are where incentive pay makes sense, because the outcome follows the effort. Base it on something the person can see — accounts opened, orders billed, collections received — rather than a figure only you can produce. Agree the basis in writing on day one, and pay it on the same date as the salary with the working shown.